Many people figure that one of the fundamental things government is supposed to do is to make sure all citizens have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. This belief is so deeply ingrained that a lot of people consider access to those life-giving resources not a basic human right.
Yet by combing through records that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had been keeping under wraps, National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity discovered that millions of Americans are breathing air contaminated by toxic chemicals that federal and state regulators were supposed to control under the Clean Air Act.
This toxic air pollution drifts daily through hundreds of U.S. communities, leading to serious health issues and creating a public health crisis in cities, towns and rural areas nationwide.
But the regulatory agencies may be less to blame for the problem of toxic air than the politicians who approve their budgets. Learn more.
(Source: www.environment.about.com )